Ideas, information and industry news for collegiate retailers

A new dorm room is like a blank canvas, and your incoming students need your help to fill it in! Encourage them to start school in style and gain their loyalty before they even arrive on campus with two fun events that will fill up those empty rooms and inspire some school spirit right from the start. Here’s your chance to highlight your dorm-friendly inventory and awesome accessories as you invite the incoming students to trick out their dorm rooms and upgrade their outfits. To help you attract their attention and get them in your store, we’ve also created a Facebook cover photo and customizable posters to hang up around campus. Although we’ve created these contests with orientation and the beginning of school in mind, you could hold them at any time.

Forget about “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.” At Swarthmore College Bookstore, every day is “Bring Your Dogs to Work Day.” For the past eight years, Steve Levin, the store’s book manager, has brought his pair of black labs to work with him. The dogs provide stress relief and comfort to students, staff and faculty. They have become a fixture at the store, and one of the most popular attractions for visitors to the campus.

The Auburn University Bookstore has a long-standing tradition of handing out buttons to football fans who visit the store on Saturday home games. Every set of buttons has a unique slogan, tailored to the individual game. However, coming up with new slogans every year became quite a challenge for the staff.

Between Facebook, Twitter and Instagram students are constantly snapping photos and, chances are, most of them are “selfies.” Taking advantage of the latest rage, Edinboro University Campus Bookstore hosted a Selfie Spectacular during buyback as a way to gain student attention and bring them into the store.

The T.I.S College Bookstore in Bloomington hosted their second annual Big Wheel 500 event on April 24^th. The timing was deliberately aimed to coincide with the excitement of two other campus events, the Little 500, an annual bicycle race at the University, and “World’s Greatest College Weekend.” The bookstore had formerly been one of the exclusive ticket retailers for the Little 500, which was a terrific opportunity to promote their branded merchandise, as well as other items.

The incoming class will begin arriving on campus any day for new student orientation. Build customer loyalty and help overcome any anxiety by giving them a delicious introduction to everything your store has to offer. 

We’ve come up with an event, several activities and all the marketing materials you’ll need to make the incoming class feel welcome at your store right from the start.

Connect with these potential customers with daily trivia questions, online crowdsourcing, ice cream-centered social events and then top it all off by combining sundae building with a bookstore tour.

All you have to do is follow our easy instructions to get started!

Every quarter, EIU University Bookstore initiates a special promotion to highlight their Apple product line. This Spring, staff member Taylor Brandon wanted to create a unique way to not only showcase the store’s Apple merchandise, but also all of the other items they have in stock. After some brainstorming, she developed a seasonal promotion to generate awareness on their offerings by driving traffic.

When students think of their college bookstore, many simply see dollar signs, thinking only of the place they go to spend money on textbooks. So, as collegiate retailers, you have to work extra hard to change that perception. Waubonsee Community College Bookstore recently came up with a contest that helped prove their dedication to affordability.

With increased competition, it’s more important than ever to advertise the benefits of shopping at your store. One of the many ways college stores are effectively achieving this task is through incentives. For example, UIC Bookstore recently implemented a promotion that encouraged students to use their online textbook reservation program by offering them a free item.